Leveling system: Why is it so bad ?

[Deadjack]

I'm crazy about this game.
And we are hundreds in this situation.

But frankly. Okay the game is difficult but the experience system is horrible.

So first i ask: What's your goal ?

Because leveling is in general a way to upgrade your characters.
The problem here is, even if you didn't reached afflicted status (stress at max and you gain a very bad effect cured in sanitarium), when you level up you gain bad quirks.
Only characters with very low stress can gain positiv quirks...


Grinding very long and painfull, character customization awfull.
Many players uses recruits as cannon fodder and get rid of thoses with bad quirks even when they are level 2 because sanitarium is horribly expensive (when the building works because some times quirks are not even removed correctly).


Frankly i would like to hear someone who finished the game.
After 10 hours i'm still at lvl 0 - 1 quests.... with only 2 deaths and 4 recruits dismissed.



My solutions: reduction of 10 % of stress during fights. Because seriously you can't even prepare your fighters to endure stress levels.
Or positives quirks that you can learn in sanitarium or survivalist to reduce stress in dungeons.
Like "Ruin Adventurer"; + 20% stress resist in Ruins. You could make a smaller one around 10% for 1200 gold.

Thanks for reading and thanks for this amazing game.

Deadjack, who bought Darkest Dungeon... now masochist afflicted.

N.B: Could you please make a timer for the eating event, like 5 mins after a previous meal.
Or make gold on the same inventory slot...
Thanks !

[LostHero]

Originally posted by Deadjack:

Only characters with very low stress can gain positiv quirks...

You sure about that, Ive gotten good quirks on people with high stress, heck 2 of my guys went insane together and came out with possitve quirks.

[FDru]

New heroes gain stress faster because they are inexperienced. Recycling of weak heroes is more or less part of the game design, and that's evidenced by the narrative. It's actually kind of inefficient to use throwaway lvl 0 parties, but it's somethign to fall back on if you don't have enough confidence to complete higher level quests.

I think the balance of early / late game costs are definitely in need of looking at though (and they probably will be changed). It just seems like getting started it's impossible to make use of town services while still being able to fund well-equipped parties... but after a few upgrades you're making tons of gold and at the same time town services are like half the price they were. It flips very, very quickly from "can't do anything" to "gold coming out of my ears".

[Deadjack]

Perfect exemple: A vestal who took nearly no damages has the best quirks in my roster.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=387698076

[Futushia]

I'm 12 hours in, got a bunch of level 3s and destroying everything. Manage your money and upgrade your guild and blacksmith.

[They Live]

I find "grinding" fun.

On lvl up your hero will endure the stress better, and can be upgraded with stuff : blacksmith/guild/survivalist, all those -prior upgrade of structure- have lvl requirement.

About negative quirks go to sanitarium and get rid of em (at least of the more annoying ones).

Probably lot of things that you have adressed just need a better understanding of game mechanics.

Your goal (not yet available as the darkest dungeon is not in ea) is to redeem your family wealth and honour by defeting even the deepest lvl of the darkest dungeon.

What you mean with "character customization awful"? pls elaborate a bit more.

Also if you guys go mad when you die or because some random event that you find unfair or you expect games which hold your hand or with a linear difficulty in the future just AVOID anything with the "roguelike" tag.

This isn't a roguelike in its strict definition but it has roguelike elements. You eve played dungeons of dredmor?the pit?FTL? Dungeon of Endless? etc...

You will die and death is permanent, content being random it will happen. What you can do is understand base mechanics and try to minimize risk.

Don't like it. Avoid it. But this was made clear even on early kickstarter phase of this game.

[steven8240000]

hm... I have a roster of 16 lvl 3~4 some near lvl 5 characters.

my character rarely get stressed out at low level dungeons... in fact, I think only 1 time in level 1 dungeons... and I feel like the game is fairly balanced (from what I can see)

negative quirk might seems very bad... but remember the overall stats of character are 2 digits... so those % aren't really that much...

I feel like using suicide squad is a bad, cuz you never get your party level up.. just wasting time and money... pick a roster of 5 proper healers 5 front line and 10 aoe/dps

my favorite character is probably crusader.. good dps (even stronger against unholy) good tank, and one of the camp skill that allows him to heal and reduce stress on all other character..
utilize the camp and that ability can really make a difference

and a bit of grinding is very much needed... i lost my very first lvl 3 team in a map because i didn't grind enough to level blacksmith/ guild/ any of their equipment and skill properly...

once i level them up, game seems fairly easy ... (except there will be more enemy that generate stress later)

[Olde King]

I've completed the entire game now (Week 50) You just have to get a good team composition and play smart, heal when needed, don't always do AOE attacks sometimes killing a guy with 1 hp using a high accuracy single target ability is better than trying to get him with an AOE that has a higher chance to miss.

You can get good quirks even when you're stressed out just as LostHero said before me. And the leveling is fine, when they level up you can upgrade there abilities, weapons, and armor and they become a lot more effective even after the first level up. Keep in there, game has a difficult learning curve for most. If you wanna talk team compositions just message me if ya want!

CHEERS

[Deadjack]

Originally posted by flintwestwood:

I find "grinding" fun.

On lvl up your hero will endure the stress better, and can be upgraded with stuff : blacksmith/guild/survivalist, all those -prior upgrade of structure- have lvl requirement.

About negative quirks go to sanitarium and get rid of em (at least of the more annoying ones).

Probably lot of things that you have adressed just need a better understanding of game mechanics.

Your goal (not yet available as the darkest dungeon is not in ea) is to redeem your family wealth and honour by defeting even the deepest lvl of the darkest dungeon.

What you mean with "character customization awful"? pls elaborate a bit more.

I didn't knew about level stress reduction and equipment. Of course I knew for sanitarium, i have an other topic where people drops obivous answers like go to sanitarium to remove Tippler and Gambler...

For character customization, well, it's related to level up. In fact yes you are right I was asking to the developpement team what was the purpose of levelling but in fact i just want better understanding of game mechanics.

About roguelike... it will be an endless debat and here i'm talking about difficulty.

If you loose and suffer of ignorance: it's punishment.
If you loose and grasp why : it's difficulty.

Grinding is fun when you have a result. And now with your help i understand why i've lost quite a lot of time.

Thank you !

N.B: Yeah more explanations in game would be great !

[Pod 6 is Jerks]

Originally posted by DeadlyDanDaMan:

Originally posted by Jones:

Doesn't beating a dungeon level it up, making it so level 0 characters have less and less of a chance? Doesn't it make them lose sanity faster and take more damage?

Or am I confused about something?

That's why you don't beat them. You abandon before you do. That's how the cannon fodder cheese trick works:)

I don't think that's how it works. You raise the "level" of a dungeon by completing runs, sure, but I think that's just to unlock boss runs and higher level versions.

[Deadjack]

Originally posted by steven8240000:

hm... I have a roster of 16 lvl 3~4 some near lvl 5 characters.

my character rarely get stressed out at low level dungeons... in fact, I think only 1 time in level 1 dungeons... and I feel like the game is fairly balanced (from what I can see)[..]

I feel like using suicide squad is a bad, cuz you never get your party level up.. just wasting time and money... pick a roster of 5 proper healers 5 front line and 10 aoe/dps[..]

and a bit of grinding is very much needed... i lost my very first lvl 3 team in a map because i didn't grind enough to level blacksmith/ guild/ any of their equipment and skill properly...

once i level them up, game seems fairly easy ... (except there will be more enemy that generate stress later)

Thanks man you saved my day because I potimised like a devil my teams for bad results at the end. The fact was i needed to choose the appropriate quest level for character levels.
A lvl 0 quest for a lvl 1 or 2 character is wrong.

Oh man you just saved my day i will try that immediatly

[floccinaucinihilipilification]

I have many L6 characters, just mindlessly collecting trinkets, and no one has died. This took about 10-12 hours to reach these levels with two groups. I'm about 30 hours in right now just messing around. If we're under the impression that this game is hard, it's silly easy. The miniscule hard part is in starting out because you don't know what to do. This gap takes less time for some and longer for others to comprehend. Once you surpass the initial learning curve, the mid and late game balance is very lack luster, and you often just barrel through everything without seeing any chance of failure. It's because of the first few hours being tricky that addicts. The rest of the time is pointless unless it can keep up a challenging pace. We want our graveyard to fill up. We want things to be challenging. It's not.

[Xahk]

The "you can only use one restoration activity" coupled with the caretaker taking a slot make for a hero ruining build. I think that one of those mechanics should be removed so the early game can't just ruin a save by having three of your heroes roll "can only flagulate" after the first level up, then having that darn caretaker flagulate for five weeks straight. (what a wierdo)

[FlySC]

Originally posted by Jones:

Doesn't beating a dungeon level it up, making it so level 0 characters have less and less of a chance? Doesn't it make them lose sanity faster and take more damage?

Or am I confused about something?

The level thing is the path to the boss, so you unlock the boss dungeon after completing a set number of quests, however you will still get lvl 1 missions always, as far as I know. It just gives you the option of doing harder missions.

[FlySC]

Originally posted by floccinaucinihilipilification:

I have many L6 characters, just mindlessly collecting trinkets, and no one has died. This took about 10-12 hours to reach these levels with two groups. I'm about 30 hours in right now just messing around. If we're under the impression that this game is hard, it's silly easy. The miniscule hard part is in starting out because you don't know what to do. This gap takes less time for some and longer for others to comprehend. Once you surpass the initial learning curve, the mid and late game balance is very lack luster, and you often just barrel through everything without seeing any chance of failure. It's because of the first few hours being tricky that addicts. The rest of the time is pointless unless it can keep up a challenging pace. We want our graveyard to fill up. We want things to be challenging. It's not.

I agree. Early game is chalenging and you can get screwed by rng, but once you have some lvl 3 characters and some town upgrades it seems to be smooth sailing. So I wouldnt mind a dificulty spike in the late game. I have not yet tried the elite missions so maybe the difficulty soike is already in place there? We´ll see